Latest / THE DAILY BRIEF / Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on new rifts between Trump and GOP leaders over Iran

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Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on new rifts between Trump and GOP leaders over Iran · THE DAILY BRIEF

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  Speaker 1: The war in Iran has opened new cracks in President
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  Speaker 1: Trump's relationship with GOP leaders on Capitol Hill, and Democrats
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  Speaker 1: face their own family feud this week as New York's
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  Speaker 1: primaries pit progressives against moderates. Here to reflect on that
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  Speaker 1: and the reflecting pool is our Politics Monday duo Amy
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  Speaker 1: Walter of The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter and
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  Speaker 1: Tamra Keith of NPR. Thanks guys, Welcome back.
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  Speaker 2: Hello Tim.
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  Speaker 1: Let me start with you got high profile Republican allies
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  Speaker 1: questioning the Iran Memo of understanding, say it's weak, and
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  Speaker 1: there's also spy power negotiations at a standstill. Is this
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  Speaker 1: a GOP conference now pushing back or not?
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  Speaker 3: I think that we need to wait a little while
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  Speaker 3: to see whether they are rhetorically pushing back or whether
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  Speaker 3: they're actually going to take votes or do more substantive
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  Speaker 3: things to push back on the president. They certainly have.
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  Speaker 3: Some of them have certainly expressed displeasure with the Iran deal,
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  Speaker 3: with President Trump rarely pulling his nomination for the director
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  Speaker 3: of National Intelligencer telling him not to show up for
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  Speaker 3: his confirmation hearing, there is a big well of frustration
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  Speaker 3: with Republicans towards the president. There's a big well of
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  Speaker 3: frustration from the President towards Republicans, insisting that they do
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  Speaker 3: all kinds of things to pass the Save America Act,
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  Speaker 3: which is a measure that would require voter ID proof
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  Speaker 3: of citizenship and also would really limit mail ballot mail voting,
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  Speaker 3: which a lot of Republicans actually like. He's putting a
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  Speaker 3: lot of pressure on Senate Republicans. He's actually headed up
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  Speaker 3: to the Hill this week to meet with some of
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  Speaker 3: these Senate Republicans. It's just not clear that they can
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  Speaker 3: give him what he wants, but it's also not clear
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  Speaker 3: how hard they're ultimately going to push back against him.
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  Speaker 1: Amyan, I wonder how much political pressure there is from people,
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  Speaker 1: so to speak. Let's look at the polls the people,
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  Speaker 1: PBS News, our NPR Marris poll at least last week
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  Speaker 1: found the president with the lowest approval rating of his
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  Speaker 1: second term thirty six percent, only thirty three percent approving
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  Speaker 1: of his handling of the economy, and you low for
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  Speaker 1: him as president. And seventy eight percent of Americans say
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  Speaker 1: gas prices are straining their household budget. How much of
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  Speaker 1: this is actual?
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  Speaker 2: So Jasure's where this Republican rift is really interesting. As
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  Speaker 2: we've been discussing, and you know very well, there's definitely
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  Speaker 2: a rift ideologically on Capitol Hill between those maybe who
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  Speaker 2: are more hawkish who would like to see the United
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  Speaker 2: States continue down the path they were going on militarily,
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  Speaker 2: and others who did not want to see that. But
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  Speaker 2: fundamentally politically, if you're a Republican up for reelection in
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  Speaker 2: a tough district, here's a number you've been seeing since
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  Speaker 2: the war started. The president's handling of the economy. The
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  Speaker 2: net unfavorable has gone up by about ten points. His
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  Speaker 2: net unfavorable on inflation has gone up close to twenty points.
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  Speaker 2: That is a problem for you as a Republican running
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  Speaker 2: free election. So this war ending, theoretically is going to
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  Speaker 2: help bring those numbers back to hopefully a reasonable place
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  Speaker 2: if you're a Republican running free election. But the challenge
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  Speaker 2: right now for Republicans in the sort of intra party
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  Speaker 2: challenge beyond this question of how hard do they push
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  Speaker 2: back on Donald Trump, who still remains the king maker
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  Speaker 2: and the party, but is the lack of enthusiasm among
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  Speaker 2: the base. The one thing in that Maris poll that
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  Speaker 2: I looked at is people who identify as Republican, how
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  Speaker 2: strongly do they approve of Trump versus how many are
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  Speaker 2: just like, Yeah, he's okay, he's fine, I approve The
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  Speaker 2: strongly approved number since a year ago at this time
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  Speaker 2: among Republicans has dropped close to twelve points on net.
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  Speaker 2: And so what you're seeing is Republicans aren't abandoning Donald Trump,
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  Speaker 2: but they're just not as enthusiastic about him, which means
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  Speaker 2: they may not be as enthusiastic to show up to vote.
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  Speaker 1: Let's talk about democratic primaries tomorrow. Maryland, Utah hold primaries tomorrow.
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  Speaker 1: South Carolina hould his primary runoff, but most election watchers
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  Speaker 1: will be focused on New York, where New York City
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  Speaker 1: Mayor Zorhan Mamdani is backing challengers against incumbent Democrats he
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  Speaker 1: sees as too moderate. Amy which races are you watching
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  Speaker 1: most closely?
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  Speaker 2: Well, let's start with this. Yes, it's New York. I
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  Speaker 2: love the people of New York, but it is a
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  Speaker 2: very small segment of the electorate. Now, no doubt, I
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  Speaker 2: think the national tension is going to be on Mandannie
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  Speaker 2: and whether he can use what he has right now,
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  Speaker 2: which is considerable political clout within the New York City
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  Speaker 2: the Progressive Movement to get his preferred candidates over the line.
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  Speaker 2: I'm intrigued by a couple of things. The first is
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  Speaker 2: there's basically an AI versus AI battle taking place in
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  Speaker 2: the one of the district one of the districts in
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  Speaker 2: Manhattan Upper West, Upper East Side, where the folks firm
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  Speaker 2: anthropic who would like to see maybe more regulation are
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  Speaker 2: supporting a candidate who, while in the state legislature actually
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  Speaker 2: passed some AI regulation. The folks at Open AI don't
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  Speaker 2: really like the legislation that he passed, and so they're
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  Speaker 2: spending against him millions and millions of dollars for one
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  Speaker 2: seat in Congress. The second thing, I would say, there's
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  Speaker 2: a lot of talk about whether Mom Donnie succeeds. What
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  Speaker 2: does this mean for the Democratic Socialist movement? Does this
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  Speaker 2: mean the party? Now the Democratic Party has moved so
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  Speaker 2: far left the race. I think that's going to tell
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  Speaker 2: us much more about that is not happening until August,
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  Speaker 2: and that's in Michigan, where a much more progressive candidate
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  Speaker 2: sort of in the mold of some of these candidates
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  Speaker 2: that Mom Donnie is supporting, is facing off against two
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  Speaker 2: more sort of established many type of Democrats in a
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  Speaker 2: swing state, in a state that's going to matter in
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  Speaker 2: the next upcoming presidential election as well. So whether that
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  Speaker 2: can can win a primer and whether that can can
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  Speaker 2: win a general election will tell us a lot more
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  Speaker 2: about the strength of that wing of the party, the
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  Speaker 2: Mom Donnie wing or the Bernie wing. Then what's happening in.
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  Speaker 1: You New York and time? Let me finally get you
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  Speaker 1: on the pool? So the President, thank you? Yeah, the
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  Speaker 1: President it seems increasingly frustrated, shall we say, by his
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  Speaker 1: struggle to clean the pool, to convince the public that
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  Speaker 1: it was in fact not the tours who created all
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  Speaker 1: that algae and all of the paint crustin Do these
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  Speaker 1: claims Do these arguments still land with his supporters?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah? And I will not be here to truth on
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  Speaker 3: or fact check on epoxy and how it works, because
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  Speaker 3: that is not my expertise. What I will say is
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  Speaker 3: that this reflecting pool has turned into yet another fight
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  Speaker 3: over Donald Trump, and he made the pool about himself.
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  Speaker 3: It is one of many projects that he has pushed
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  Speaker 3: through ahead of America two fifty. He has put so
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  Speaker 3: much focus on it, so much calling people into the
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  Speaker 3: Oval Office, to show charts of the pool next to
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  Speaker 3: giant skyscrapers, to say how big it is, and on
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  Speaker 3: and on and on and all of these truth social
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  Speaker 3: posts and all of this that he's drawing so much
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  Speaker 3: attention to it. And it does raise the question, like,
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  Speaker 3: what about those kitchen table issues that Senate Republicans want
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  Speaker 3: to talk about and this housing bill that is bipartisan
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  Speaker 3: support and just pass the Senate. That could be something
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  Speaker 3: that they could run on.
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  Speaker 2: Or talk about, which he has talked about at all, right, right,
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  Speaker 2: other than the pool, anything but the pool.
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  Speaker 1: I have a feeling the pool debate will continue, Yes,
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  Speaker 1: sar Keith Amy Walter. Thanks as always. You're welcome, welcome,
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  Speaker 1: support journalism you trust. Support PBS News. Donate now, or
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  Speaker 1: even better, start a monthly contribution today.